Day #328:”If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”

When I first read in Charles Duhhig’s Power of Habit that a study showed correlation between people who make their bed in the morning and how well they managed their finances, I dismissed it as one of those frivolous,good for humour studies. Not until recently watching a video of a commencement address by US Naval Adm. William McRaven, ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, at the University of Texas at Austin did I pay serious attention to it.

He mentions in the video (watch below) how the habit of laying your bed was instilled into Navy SEALs.

Here’s what he says:

Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Viet Nam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed.

If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack—rack—that’s Navy talk for bed.

It was a simple task—mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle hardened SEALs—but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.

By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.

If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrowwill be better.